Getting out of a traffic ticket

One of the ways to get out of a trafficticket is to dispute the technology involved. Ask what kind of radar gun the cop was using; if it was a handheld gun reporting a very small over-the-limit speed, you can dispute an inaccuracy in the gun. Of course, you can make mistakes - one person got off of a ticket by claiming that he "was rushing home due to incredible stomach pains and a forthcoming bowel movement from the flu". The officerbelieved him.
Be creative; come up with excuses that the officer probably hasn't heard before. "I was on my cell phone" won't work (people hate cell phones! However, "My wife is cheating on me and i need to get home to catch her in the act." might.
Good luck when you push the needle to the max!

My brother was a cop for 25 years. He said the only time that the radar gun accuracy was beaten in court was when the defendant asked of the cop the question "How was the radar gun calibrated?", to which the cop replied "With a tuning fork" (which is how they all are calibrated), and the defendant followed up with "How was the tuning fork calibrated?", for which there was no answer, ergo, reasonable doubt. I have read recently about how the radar gun manufacturers have amendened the calibration process, but it might be worth a try.

More often than not, the officer does not show up in court and your case is dismissed. If the cop does show, you still have a place where you can explain your situation to the judge and your fines may be lowered.

When asked, in the case of a speeding ticket, why you were traveling so fast, UNLESS you are faced with a real emergency be honest, “I wish I could say there was sir, but no I was just not watching the speedometer.” This is a more understandable response then “I was late for work.” This shows that you are doubly irresponsible.

Have Licenses, and insurance ready for them, the sooner he gets those the sooner you get on with it.

If you have a concealed handgun license MAKE SURE the officer sees that first, let him know you have a weapon, when asked where it is, do not physically show him, slowly point to the weapon putting yourself in a vulnerable position where the officer feels safe. Then ask if he/she would like for you to step out of the vehicle. Whatever he/she says go along with it.

Remember, the safer the officer feels, then the more comfortable he/she will feel, and the better mood he/she will be in.

Don’t be nervous, I know it’s hard, but try not to be, that will make the officer uncomfortable. Also that will give the impression of a coward something that testosterone frenzied cops do not like.

The first suggestion I can make to you is take the ticket, and win in court. It is much easier to win in a 15-minute court trial of the ticket, especially when you are barely over the limit, rather than to try to talk the officer out of the ticket, or by doing something extreme.

If they cannot bring one piece of evidence to court with you, you win by default. Done. That's the law.

Tip #2: Claim damage to your car.

Have a local mechanic look at your speedometer, claim that it is "damaged", or "miscalibrated", and have it replaced. One look at the receipt, and the judge will claim that you are not liable, since you could not tell how fast you were going. This is hard to prove with digital speedometers. You can claim damage to your brakes that you were on your way to getting repaired, but that is a whole new world of trouble.

Tip #3: Over-write the check, and do not deposit the difference.

Supposedly, if you write a check to the state for say, two dollars over the price, and do not cash the refund check, the transaction is not considered closed, and is not reported on your driving record. This may be an urban legend.

Many places do not have insurance deals with far away states. Massachusetts has one with New York, for instance, but not with Oregon. So if you go far away, and get your licence converted, then you do not need to worry about the state reporting the tickets to your new home state. A New York friend of mine did this with Washington State. This can cause other small problems, but if it is a huge concern for you, is quite manageable.

I think that this only applies to California, however, it may also be true in other states (I've heard that Nevada is the same.) It's so useful that I couldn't resist noding it.

When you get a speeding ticket, you have 3 options: pay the fine and accept a guilty plea (give up), plead innocent and go to traffic court, and plead innocent and contest the charge by snail mail. If you go to traffic court, the police officer typically gets overtime pay to attend so he is highly motiviated. On the other hand, there is no such incentive to respond to trial-by mail claims. As a result, less than half of the trial-by-mail claims get up getting prosecuted. In addition it's likely that you can remember what happened quite a bit better than the police officer (you only got one ticket, they gave 20-30 that day) and without your face to remind them, they may be unable to come up with enough information to counter your claims.

The option to contest through the mail (trial de novo or something like that) is usually not prominently displayed to the offender and so most people with busy lives think the only way to avoid a 4 hour trial is to pay the fine and live with it. If you look carefully, you can usually find it. There is a form to fill out (I downloaded it from the Court Website). I have heard of people just putting something like "I'm Not Guilty!" on their form and sending it back, hoping for a no show from their officer.

The best thing about contesting through the mail is that you can change your mind AFTER getting the judgement and decide that a full-fledged trial would be better for you. This means that you can choose to try for the trial in person if the trial-by-mail doesn't turn out like you like! I actually ended up doing this with one ticket that I felt was unfair and got off because the officer wasn't there (I saw him going up in the elevator after I was going down but you snooze, you lose!)

There are some other things that you can do to make sure that you were not treated unfairly. One thing is that there must be a traffic survey of the road every 2 years or so to verify that the posted speed limit is correct for the road conditions. If it hasn't been done, it's an illegal speed trap.

If the day is good (weather and road condition wise) you can argue that the speed limit is artificially low given the conditions. In my case, I actually commented to the officer on what a beautiful day it was and he agreed.

Finally I think it's best to comment on what I believe the purpose of such information should be. This isn't some kind of disclaimer, it's really how I feel about it. Speed laws are there to protect people from killing each other with reckless abandon. In many cases, however, speed limits are set by arbitrary laws having to do with whether or not there is a driveway connected to the road or how many lanes the road has rather than what the conditions that are actually present on a road. In additon, speed limits need to assume the worse case (you have never been on this road and it's driving rain or sleet or something) and on most days, this is not the case and so the limit is lower than can be safely driven. There are also artificial pressures on police officers in the form of quotas and the like that prove that the officers have been busy.

Of all the tricks and excuses I've heard, this is the only one that I use. It has worked every time and it has worked for others. Consider it a sacred tradition, passed down through word of mouth from one person to the next, all in the name of Damning the Man.

This is truly how to get out of a ticket.

I don't often speed but I do get pulled over a lot (although not recently.) It's usually for running a red light but it's has also been for driving drunk (I wasn't actually drunk at the time, I'm just a bad driver.) I tend to rock out too much to the music and watch the people more than the road. This attracts the attention of John Q. Lawman.

Now, it's up to you to be convincing. It's up to you, to go the distance. You might have to actually shit your own pants to avoid the ticket. If you had my track record (seen above) you probably would (can you imagine if I had been ticketed every time.)

The Key: Be convincing. This should include restlessness and pained looks. Clutch your stomach but don't be melodramatic. Offer for him to follow you and give you the ticket when you get home just, please God, let me get home so I don't ruin these seats.

Why it works: Two reasons.

1- Everyone can relate to it. Even cops, know the feeling of eating too many cherries and having to squeal your tires so you don't wreck shop in your trousers. Whether it's food poisoning, the flu or just too much greasy food, the officer's heart will soften.

2- No one wants that on their (metaphorical) hands. If you shit your pants and he didn't let you use the bathroom after you specifically told him your condition, he can be in a lot of trouble. Cops are constantly under scrutiny for their behavior and the one that just pulled you over does not want to have to answer to anyone as to why someone in his custody shat themselves. It's bad business.

I hadn't cried at all since it happened. That is pretty much the norm for me. I will cry at the sappiest movie or the cheapest pop song, but when something big and awful happens in real life I just all of sudden become resigned and non-feeling. I guess it started when my cousin (who was more like a sister to me since we were both "only children") died in a car crash when I was still a kid. She was so beautiful and so vibrant and then she was just all of sudden so dead. Her parents' life was such a nightmare that day as well as every day afterwards that the only response that made any sense was: "Shut down; don't dwell; shit happens."

I got the call at 4 AM that there was trouble. I went back to sleep and got another call at 6 AM that it had happened. So I made plans with my wife to travel by myself from Little Rock to Corinth, Mississippi (about an hour due east of Memphis) and take care of it. I was listening to some old soul music on a Memphis radio station at around 10 AM when I got on the new beltway that takes you south of Germantown and saves you about an hour's drive. I didn't realize the speed limit changed from 65 to 55 for a few miles there, and (sure enough) a cop with a radar gun was right ahead of me. When I looked back and saw him turn on the lights, I thought he was going to go for the little black Camry in front of me who had slammed on his brakes, causing me to slow down as well. But, no. He was wanting to talk to me.

I pulled off at the next exit and stopped. I rolled down the window and began the process of getting out my drivers license and insurance card. He walked up to my window and said, "I clocked you going 66 in a 55."

I was looking down at my dashboard and he was standing with his head just above window level. I said, "I don't guess it would make any difference if I told you my mom died this morning and I'm on my way to Corinth to bury her."

He said, "What was that, sir? I couldn't hear you." And he leaned further in my window.

I turned to face him directly and said, "I don't guess it would make any difference if I told you my mom died this morning and I'm on my way to Corinth to bury her?"

He knelt down so that we were eye to eye and said, "It might."

We just looked at each other for a minute and he handed me my license and insurance card back and said, "We all have a mom. We only have one. I'm sorry you just lost yours, but try to watch your speed, please."

And he walked back to his flashing car and drove away.

And then I began to cry. I sat there on the side of the road and cried hard for a long time. And now I can't even tell this story without crying again. There was something very important about what he said to me and the way he looked when he said it. It had something to do with his initial, "It might."

I thought of all the things that might have been different. My dad might not have left her when I was just a youngster and put her in a situation where she had to work a minimum wage job just to put food on the table. She might not have tried to kill herself a couple of times when things became too much for her. (Not that pretend suicide stuff, but stuff like shooting yourself in the chest with a pistol and barely missing a major organ.) She might have been born totally sane and my dad might have been born an honorable gentleman. I might not have become such a callous son who should never have treated his mother so badly and who should have been there when she first went into the hospital instead of hiring someone to "sit with her."

I was crying because the cop was an authority figure who treated me well, and it brought back all the times my dad was a great dad when I was little, before liquor and women and the pull of breaking free sent him on his way from us. I became a 5 year old with a problem and a comforting man to forgive me of a small sin and tell me it was OK to feel bad about the bad things in life and maybe even cry a little. Or more than a little.

I was crying so hard because it was something that made me realize how much I loved her even though it was so hard to say that to her, and how much I was going to miss not having a living parent, no matter what had happened in the past with both of the dysfunctional and helpless in their own way breeders who have left me here, now unattended.

Now I sit here in her house -- my house now, I suppose -- and arrange a funeral. Out of all the folks in my life who have died, this is the first time I've actually had to bury them myself. It's not as seamless as you might think.

She showed me a picture a long time ago of her and a young sailor who wasn't my father. This was after he had left home when I was a kid and left us broke and stranded. She said, "I should have married this one. But then you wouldn't be here, so I guess things turned out for the best." He was a strapping young Italian fellow in his 20s and I asked her why she didn't. She said, "He was Catholic. My dad would have killed me."

So the fellow who turned out to be my dad was a part-time Baptist preacher and a farmer. And, later on, a drunk. And, a little later on, a philanderer. And, even later on, a thief. But he wasn't a Catholic and that was apparently very important in my mom's family.

She asked me, just a few years ago, "Is it true that you can find almost anyone on this internet thing?" I told her, "Yes, pretty much," and she spelled her old Italian Catholic boyfriend's name, Louis Renzulli, for me and told me where she thought he might be living. Within five minutes I had given her a phone number and an address. He was in New Jersey, probably about half an hour's drive away from some drunken ex-doctor.

And now I sit here in her house and go through letters from the Italian Catholic sailor which are so sweet and dear and in which he calls her "Pee Wee."

When she told me last winter than he had passed away up there in New Jersey, I said, "You should have gone to see him."

She said, "Oh, that would have been silly. We're just a couple of old folks who would probably look pretty darn ugly to each other nowadays."

I look at pictures, a lot of pictures, stored in boxes in this house. When she was young, she had a look about her. It was her mom's look; that twinkle in her eye that said, "I'm on to something here. You might want to hear about it."

I see pictures of my dad, too, with my cousins and me when I was little. He had a twinkle in his eye, too. He was happy and my mom was happy and they were in their late 20s and early 30s and it was the 1950s when Ike was running things smoothly, and then quite suddenly things between my parents went so far to hell that I had to do that thing where you just turn it off and say, "Shit happens. Deal. But you do not cry, you little fuck."

The day he left home when I was around 13, I was on the couch watching a baseball game. It was Saturday afternoon. He was in the bedroom and I could hear him packing stuff up in a suitcase, like he did sometimes when he went on his "business trips." He came in and sat down on a chair facing me. He said, "I've got to leave now. I probably won't be back."

I suppose he wanted me to run over to him and hug him and say, "Oh, please don't go."

I kept my eyes on Sandy Koufax throwing a fastball in black and white, just over the inside corner, and said, "It's about time." I had turned into a momma's boy, even though I wish she'd given him a bit more slack about the looser lifestyle he was leading now that we were in the city and not on the farm.

When I got married at a later age than most, I had a calico cat that I loved dearly. The woman I married also had a cat, and there was a personality conflict between the two felines. I asked my mom if she'd like to take my cat and she happily agreed. That cat lived with my mom for ten more years before the cat died. It hurt her badly to lose the only other living thing in her house. I said, "You should just get another cat." She said, "No, I couldn't take it." But when I'd talk to her on the phone I could tell she was hurting too badly, being all alone.

A few days later, I was visiting a client who had a yard full of cats. There was one which looked almost like a Siamese but had some peculiar features which made it even more attractive; a different color of blue in the eyes. I asked the client if she was particularly attached to that one cat and she said, "Not really." I asked her if I could have her and she said, "Sure."

I put the cat in a carrier and drove the miles from Little Rock to Corinth and took her in my mom's house. I said, "You want to see the prettiest cat on earth?"

That one got named "Fifi" and my mom and Fifi lived together for fifteen years.

In April she finally had to have one of her friends take Fifi to be put down.

I sit here and look at the pictures of my bald-headed dad with us when I was a child and when he was happy. Then I find pictures of him standing there with a briefcase in his hand or at a company meeting and he does not look happy any longer. He looks like a man who works selling stuff for the Man. He's not smiling and he's a bit jowley.

I work for the Man. I'm bald and jowley and I sell stuff for a living. I like to drink. Too much. Luckily, I waited until I was in my mid-30s to get married and knew what I was getting into and who I wanted to get into it with. But when I look at that picture of him, it is like looking into a mirror.

Every time my mom looked at me, her only child, she saw him. I look just like him. I know it was hard for her to deal with that. She loved her side of the family so dearly, but the Baptist sailor who ruined her life looked exactly like me. And yet she put up with all of my crap for years upon years, just like she did with his.